19th Century

German literature in the 19th century was written against a background of political aspirations for nationhood, democracy and freedom of speech. Censorship and authoritarianism prevailed for much of the century. The medieval Holy Roman Empire (which had lasted in Europe for six centuries) came to an end after Napoleon’s defeat of Austria (at Austerlitz in 1805) and Prussia (at Jena in 1806). After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the Congress of Vienna established a system of restoration called the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) which lasted until German unification in 1871.

The period 1815-1848 is sometimes called the Biedermeier but this term is controversial because it implies political conformity, placidity and even mediocrity. This description is inaccurate for many German-language writers of this period, and so the term ‘Vormärz’ (Pre-March) may be preferred. This term refers to the period of gradual political agitation which culminated in the German Revolution of March 1848. The Revolution led to the establishment of a national parliament in Frankfurt but this was soon dissolved. The standard work of history on this period is by Thomas Nipperdey (see reading list below).

Germany was united under Prussia. The Prussian Customs Union (Zollverein) founded in 1834 helped to create conditions of economic unity. Political union followed after Prussia, governed by its chancellor Otto von Bismarck, won three wars: with Austria against Denmark in 1864; against Austria in 1866; and against France in 1870. Germany became an Empire (Reich) and a nation-state for the first time in 1871, but its national parliament was toothless. The 1870s are known as the ‘Gründerjahre’ or 'Gründerzeit' (the foundation years) although there was an economic crash in 1873. In 1888 Wilhelm II (1859-1941) became Kaiser and in 1890 he forced Bismarck to resign as chancellor.

Writers 1800-1850

During the Napoleonic period two of the greatest German writers were at work:

Between 1847 and 1849 the radical feminist Louise Aston published three political novels.

The first half of the 19th century also saw the publication of philosophical works by Feuerbach, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Schelling, Schleiermacher and Schopenhauer.

Writers 1850-1900

In the second half of the 19th century the preferred mode of literature was realist fiction (sometimes called ‘poetischer Realismus’; ‘poetic realism’ or ‘bürgerlicher Realismus’; ‘bourgeois realism’). The genre of the novella (Novelle) was richly developed.

The theatre of the 1880s and 1890s was dominated by naturalism, which was influenced by the works of the great Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. Naturalist dramatists include (in alphabetical order): Elsa Bernstein, Gerhart Hauptmann, Arno Holz, Johannes Schlaf, Hermann Sudermann. Also in the 1890s, Arthur Schnitzler caused a stir in Vienna with some penetrating psychological dramas.

The most famous cultural figure in late 19th-century Germany was the composer Richard Wagner.

The most important philosopher of the late 19th century was Friedrich Nietzsche. His works exerted a decisive influence on German modernism from the 1890s onwards. The most important literary theorists around the turn of the century were the Austrian writers Hermann Bahr and Fritz Mauthner, who helped to popularize the ideas of Nietzsche, Freud and Ernst Mach.